Ortt signs SAFE Act repeal pledge

by jmaloni

Submitted

Wed, Jul 23rd 2014 11:40 am

North Tonawanda Mayor Rob Ortt signs the Shooters Committee on Political Education pledge to back repeal of the New York SAFE Act gun control law as Orleans County SCOPE Chairman Tinker Young looks on.

North
Tonawanda Mayor Rob Ortt, the endorsed Republican candidate in the 62nd
Senate District, met with the local leader of an activist group that has grown
by leaps and bounds since Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed the nation's most
restrictive gun control act into law last January.

Ortt
joined Tinker Young, the Orleans County chairman of the Shooters Committee on
Political Education, or SCOPE, at the Orleans County Fair Monday to discuss
ongoing efforts to repeal Cuomo's New York SAFE Act. SCOPE, an activist,
grass-roots group that long advocated against gun control and for favorable
state policies regarding hunting and shooting sports, has become one of the
most vocal and energetic forces against the SAFE Act since the law's enactment.

"The
SAFE Act was a bad law, because it was rammed through in the middle of the
night, before the ink was dry on the printed copies, with no debate," Ortt said
after signing SCOPE's pledge to work to repeal the gun control law and oppose
similar legislation. "But it was more fundamentally a bad law, because it flew
in the face of the Bill of Rights."

At
just 54 words, the SCOPE pledge states: "As a candidate for office in the state
of New York, I pledge to support the Second Amendment and the rights of gun
owners, hunters, and sportsmen in our state. I pledge to support the repeal of
the NY SAFE Act and oppose any similar gun-ban legislation at the local, state,
and federal level."

Young
witnessed Ortt's pledge signature.

Ortt,
a combat veteran who earned a Bronze Star serving in Afghanistan, was blunt
about his stance on repealing the SAFE Act and protecting the Second Amendment.

"I'm
proud to have served my country. When I first put on the uniform, I swore an
oath to support and defend the Constitution," Ortt said. "Signing the SCOPE
pledge is just reaffirming an oath I took a long time ago. I meant it then, and
I mean it now."

Ortt
is seeking election as the endorsed Republican candidate in New York's 62nd
Senate District, which includes all of Niagara and Orleans counties, as well as
the towns of Sweden and Ogden.